The UCLA men’s tennis team has perhaps the best chance to
bring a championship to UCLA this spring.
Last year, the team got to the Final Four before losing a tight
4-2 match to Georgia in the national semifinals.
This year, every starter returns for the No. 1 Bruins, and key
recruits make the lineup even stronger.
“This is the best team I’ve been on since I’ve
been here,” said senior Jean-Julien Rojer, one of four
seniors on the squad. “We are ridiculously deep
throughout.”
Juniors Tobias Clemens, Marcin Matkowski, and seniors Rodrigo
Grilli, Erfan Djahangiri and Lassi Ketola all return to the
starting lineup after winning at least two-thirds of their matches
last season.
And Rojer, the other starter from last year, will return to the
starting lineup once the spring quarter begins after winning
several professional tournaments in the fall.
Rojer didn’t take any prize money, so he still retains a
year of college eligibility.
“He’s going to be playing the Davis Cup in a few
weeks, so we’ll just give someone else a chance to play this
quarter,” head coach Billy Matin said. “But Rojer is
definitely set to come back in March.”
The top newcomer for the Bruins is Chris Lam, a sophomore who
transferred from Santa Clara and will jump right into the starting
lineup.
Lam had perhaps the most stellar fall of any UCLA player,
posting a 13-3 record en route to winning the Southern California
Intercollegiates. He was also a finalist at the ITA Regionals,
beating Clemens before losing to Djahangiri.
“He was unbelievably great in the preseason,” Martin
said. “He impressed me a lot more than I was expecting. He
adds real depth to our lineup.”
When Rojer comes back, whichever of the starters is struggling
the most will likely lose his spot, disregarding injuries.
“But you know we are going to have injuries,” said
Martin. “We always do.”
If any of the top six go down before spring quarter, sophomore
Alberto Francis, who went 6-2 while battling injuries last season,
will be ready to step in.
“Seventh and eighth guys become really important,”
Martin said.
Some teams would get nervous being ranked No. 1, but players on
the team say that they don’t feel added pressure to win a
championship just because of the team’s ranking.
“We don’t look at our ranking as something to stress
out about,” said Matkowski. “But we have to prove that
we deserve to be number one.”
UCLA has been here before. They’ve gone long stretches of
several seasons as the top-ranked team in the country. However,
Martin has yet to capture a championship in his nine-year
tenure.
And three other Pac-10 teams, Stanford, USC, and Cal, are ranked
in the top 10.
Hopefully, this talented UCLA lineup will live up to its hype
against the rest of the conference and the nation.
“We really have a good team,” Martin said.
“We’ll do well this year.”
“We’re all excited about the season,” Rojer
added. “But we’ve been number one before.”